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Tesco launches January health push with helpful little swaps for kids

As part of a wider approach to help colleagues and customers on health, Tesco has today stepped up plans to help make healthier choices a little easier for shoppers by backing the first Public Health England Change4Life campaign to promote healthier snacking for children.

Building on the success of Tesco’s 2017 ‘Little Helps to Healthier Living’ campaign which saw the biggest monthly increase in the healthiness of their customers’ baskets, the new initiative will help parents, shopping in-store and online, choose affordable healthier snacks that are 100 calories or less.

The campaign, which runs for the month of January, will appear in all Tesco stores and online at Tesco.com. It includes in-store point of sale promotional materials of healthier kids’ snacks featuring Change4Life branding. The snacks – which include Pink Lady Apple Snack Packs, Goodness Strawberry Cereal bars and Tesco Pineapple Pieces in Juice 120g – will be available at everyday low prices.

Online, Tesco will use innovative technology in partnership with SpoonGuru to allow customers to quickly and simply find 130 healthier snacks containing 100 calories or less.

Support for the Change4Life healthier snacking campaign is part of Tesco’s integrated approach to help colleagues and customers at a time of the year when healthier eating is front of mind. Other key initiatives include:

Helpful ‘little swaps’ – at the front of all large stores a helpful basket comparison will highlight ten ‘little swaps’ that are lower in sat fat, salt and sugar. Taken together the ten little swaps will be 18% lower in price than the less healthy alternative basket. Additionally, 60 healthier alternatives will be highlighted under a ‘Helpful Little Swaps’ banner in-store and online.

Weekly Little Helps – each week in January Tesco will offer lower prices on fresh fruit and vegetables in store and online, including apples, avocados and salad tomatoes.

Food Love Stories advertising – Tesco will promote the recipe for ‘Nana’s Magic Soup’, offering 2 of your 5 a day per portion, on TV and offer 25% off all ingredients – alongside other Food Love Stories spanning all meal occasions, offering inspiration on healthier cooking.

Free Fruit for Kids – increased communication of Tesco’s pioneering Free Fruit for Kids scheme in stores which has seen kids enjoy over 32 million pieces of fruit since launch in 2017.

Matt Davies CEO for UK and ROI said:

“We know that our customers want us to help them eat more healthily and it can be particularly difficult to encourage children to eat healthy snacks. By promoting a wide range of snacks, aligned with Public Health England’s campaign, we hope to make it easier for families to make a healthier start to the year. This is part of a wider programme to help our colleagues and customers stay healthy.”

Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of Public Health England, said:

“Half of the sugar children eat and drink is coming from unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks. The Change4Life campaign is our way of giving parents a helping hand to make healthier choices for their children. We highly value Tesco’s support for Change4Life and its wider efforts to make it simpler to eat healthily.”

Further action Tesco has taken on health to help customers make healthier food choices every time they shop includes:

In 2014 Tesco announced it would remove sweets and chocolates from its checkouts across all store formats, including smaller convenience stores.

In 2015 Tesco announced that all the children’s lunchbox-sized soft drinks it sells would have no added sugar in them.

In 2016, Tesco introduced Free Fruit for Kids in over 800 Tesco stores across the UK. This is aimed at promoting healthy eating habits among kids that will stay with them as they grow up, and to make it easier for children to get the fruit they need.

For three years, Tesco has worked in partnership with Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation, raising £24m.

Tesco has also partnered with Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life since 2002 raising over £40m.

Tesco has also increased the number of healthier options at Tesco Cafés, making it easier for customers to have an affordable, healthier meal while shopping in store.

In May 2017, Tesco delivered integrated colleague and customer health events in all UK stores, with little helps to make it easy for consumers to choose healthier food, many of which have become permanent:

-Permanent price reduction on over 200 healthier lines, including fresh fruit and vegetables.
-Free Fruit for Kids offer always available in larger stores.
-Increasing the number of promotions and the promotional space for healthier lines.
-Making the healthier version of brands cheaper than less healthy option.
-Front of store basket comparisons showing customers that swapping to healthier choices is cheaper as well as healthier.
-Tesco’s food brand campaign, Food Love Stories featuring healthy, affordable recipes with prominence of ingredients in store.
-In store fundraising for charities raising over £1m.

The event marked the biggest change seen in the healthiness of customers’ baskets in response to a campaign – Tesco saw customers choose more items lower in calories, fat, salt and sugar as a result.

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Tesco’s Healthy Little Differences Tracker reports the nutrient profiling score (as defined by the Food Standards Agency) of the products it sells, and through this Tesco has been able to measure the impact of interventions on shopping behaviours. During the period of the 2017 ‘Little Helps to Healthier Living’ event, it saw a significant improvement in the score of the average shopping basket at Tesco: the biggest increase it has seen outside of seasonal changes.

In partnership with SpoonGuru, Tesco is helping customers quickly and easily search for healthy, dietary and lifestyle options through 13 new online filters, including low fat, gluten free and lactose free.

The Public Health England Change4Life campaign will run from Tuesday 2 January 2018 across England for 8 weeks and will be supported with an exciting new TV and radio advert, out of home and digital advertising, social media, partnerships and nationwide roadshows. nhs.uk/change4life